I can’t believe Birdathon is actually over! Thank you all for your encouragement and support! I saw some amazing birds during the month of May, so I wanted to provide a little recap and cover some of the highlights.
Simply put, birders love lousy weather. Lousy weather brings good birds, especially in spring. May 2nd was one of those days when conditions were ripe for a “fallout”. Fallouts occur when birds traveling along a migratory corridor (in this case, the Mississippi River) racing towards their breeding grounds, encounter weather severe enough to cause them to “fall out” of the sky. They drop down, looking for suitable habitat, where they can refuel while seeking shelter from the storm. Riverlands Migratory Bird Sanctuary is just one of those spots. I met my friend Jonah there after work and saw my state lifer Whimbrel, (did I mention that birders love fallouts?) and one of my all-time favorite birds, the Upland Sandpiper.
By May 7th my Birdathon count was 87 species, largely the result of birding my yard every morning before work – my native oaks are full of the caterpillars that migrating birds rely on for fuel – and a few hours at Riverlands. Then I joined Bill, Josh, Matt and Tom for a Big Day – birding from 4 AM to 9 PM – trying to see as many species as we could in a single, joyous, exhausting day. I can’t really pick a favorite from 17 hours of birding, but I really love Sparrows, and the Clay-colored Sparrow is one of my favorites!
Honorable mention goes to a singing Hooded Warbler, and something we decided to call the Swainson’s Flush: seeing a Swainson’s Thrush (an expected migrant), a Swainson’s Hawk (an eastern MO rarity) and a Swainson’s Warbler (another eastern MO rarity) all in one day. William Swainson was a British naturalist and illustrator. Nine birds bear his name, but only three are found in North America, and we saw all three in one day, something none of us had ever done before! By the end of our Big Day, my Birdathon count was at 156 birds. We ended the day with a beautiful sunset at Riverlands, marveling as an immature Yellow-crowned Night-Heron flew over our heads as we were enveloped by the darkness.
By the second week of May, I was definitely in the Birdathon groove. I kept a small cooler in the car (carrot sticks and hummus, anyone?) just in case a rare bird was spotted in the region and I wouldn’t make it home in time for dinner. I led a few beginner bird walks at Faust Park, and found a Blackpoll Warbler, a life bird for most of my beginners.
The Blackpoll is simply an amazing bird. In spring, it migrates north across much of the eastern half of the US. In fall, it makes the longest over water journey of any songbird, migrating 1,800 miles nonstop over the Atlantic Ocean to its wintering grounds in South America. Flying for three days. Nonstop. This, from a bird weighing 12 grams. For comparison, a Northern Cardinal weighs 45 grams. Amazing, right?
May 14th brought a chance to do another Big Day. We decided to sleep in a bit, so I didn’t meet Randy until 5:30 AM. He had good intel on a pair of Western Kingbirds in St. Louis County, and after finding them we headed into St. Charles County looking for shorebirds. Shorebirds? In a state without any coastline? Yep, plenty of shorebirds migrate up the Mississippi flyway when traveling from their wintering grounds in South or Central America on their way to their nesting grounds in Canada and the Arctic. We had American Golden-Plovers at three locations in St. Charles County. This is just one of the sharpest shorebirds around.
The plan was to end the day at Young Conservation Area, hoping to hear Eastern Whip-poor-will sing at dusk, a bird I had missed on my previous Big Day. We were sitting on a couple of the large boulders that line the parking lot, when a Mourning Dove raced past us and seemed to crash into a thicket. A plump bird with a long beak came flying out and landed just 5 feet from us – an American Woodcock! It took one long look at us before it flew off, and the Whips started to sing just a few minutes later! Bird 179!
The third week of Birdathon was a lot like the first two: bird, work, bird, sleep, bird, work, bird, sleep….except it was getting harder to find new birds. I was scheduled to lead a St. Louis Audubon Field Trip to Busch Conservation Area on May 21st, but I made the decision to cancel around 5:00 AM, as the lightning and thunderstorms intensified in the area. After the worst of the storm passed, I met my friends Ryan and Amanda at Riverlands. Why Riverlands? Because bad weather brings good birds! Ryan and Amanda are new to shorebirds, and it was a lot of fun watching them see their lifer Stilt Sandpipers and Black-bellied Plovers. The Black Terns flying low over the fluddle on Barwise Road are something we won’t soon forget!
The next morning, my friend Gail and I walked our 3.5 mile BirdSafeSTL route downtown, looking for migrating birds that collided with buildings overnight. During each spring and fall migration, St. Louis Audubon volunteers complete collision surveys three mornings each week, using the iNaturalist app to document each collision. We’re not alone in this endeavor – there are projects similar to BirdSafeSTL completed by volunteers in major cities across the country – all to document the hazards that migrating birds face as they move back and forth between their wintering grounds and their nesting grounds. As a result of our surveys, the Gateway Arch National Park , the St. Louis Public Library and several other buildings agreed to dim their lights during migration, making the St. Louis sky a little safer for migrating birds. After our survey we had just enough time to search for a Connecticut Warbler that had been reported in Tower Grove Park, but the skulker had quit singing. We had to leave for work, knowing we had just missed seeing the Connecticut Warbler. Our consolation prize? Taking a drive down Darst Bottom Road after work, watching a beautiful Scissor-tailed Flycatcher hanging out in a field with 19 Eastern Kingbirds. This is one of the few areas in eastern Missouri where Scissor-tails nest, so they are always a joy to see.
The next day I was back at Tower Grove Park by 6:00 AM, because who can sleep when there’s a chance to start your day with a Connecticut Warbler? This time he was singing, and it was a pure adrenaline rush! This is a really good bird! Sibley describes the Connecticut Warbler as “uncommon, secretive and difficult to spot”. Yep, that says it all! Bird 193! I had tied my 2021 Birdathon record with the Connecticut!
The last week of Birdathon was a caffeine fueled blur. On May 28th I was a co-leader on a St. Louis Audubon Field Trip at Riverlands, and my friend Bill found two (record late) Lesser Black-backed Gulls (195!) We had a lot of beginning birders on our field trip, and they all got great looks at Baltimore Orioles, Cedar Waxwings and a Yellow Warbler on a nest. Gail and I enjoyed a Black-billed Cuckoo flyby at Marais Temps Clair (200!) and Randy and I finally saw a calling King Rail when it briefly stepped out of the reeds at BK Leach (202!). Bill had a Neotropic Cormorant already lined up in his scope when I got to Horseshoe Lake (204!) and David was with me to celebrate the Black-bellied Whistling Ducks at Willmore Park (205!). I had looked for the Whistling Ducks at two different locations on six other days during Birdathon with no success (almost pushing them into NEMESIS BIRD category), so the seventh time was definitely the charm! The grand finale of Birdathon 2022? A Louisiana Waterthrush, 206!
Some probably consider the Louisiana Waterthrush to be a drab little bird, but it’s one of the first Warblers to return in spring. It feeds on streambed invertebrates, and is a great indicator of the quality of our streams. Its arrival in mid-March is always a little bittersweet, because it’s a reminder that our winter Ducks, Gulls and Sparrows are about to move on. This sighting was really special, as I got to watch one carrying food back to its nest along the bank of Hamilton Creek. A Wood Thrush – one of nature’s finest songsters – provided backup vocals.
Thanks, again, for supporting my efforts to raise much needed funds for conservation here in the St. Louis area. I’m already looking forward to Birdathon 2023!
Enjoy every bird-
Diane
